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20100917

Shotgun much better self-defence weapon

Summary: Afrikaner taxidermist Jacques Fouché got beaten up and shot in the foot by black armed robbers - whips out his shotgun and kills two of his assaillants (new pictures); the ANC’s Zulu-factor may help Zuma retain power base: some192,600 of the ANC-members are in KZN…

The crime-scene pictures below prove how effective a shotgun loaded with buckshot can be in self-defence against such heavily-armed and very vicious killer-gangs: police said that one of the killed gunmen was on their Ten Most Wanted Criminals list in the West Rand for house robberies – and the gang’s three 9mm police-issue handguns and their R5 military assault carbine were confiscated. The gruesome crime scene pictures appear below.

Warning: do not scroll down if you are sensitive or if children are nearby.

Taxidermist Jacques Fouché, 36, from Randfontein, told Beeld Afrikaans newspaper how he was helping a client, a certain “JJ” from Mauritius, carry hunting trophies, skins and skulls to the client’s car at Fouché's house in Fir Street, Green Hills. "When we walked back, I saw two men walking toward us. I leaned into my bakkie to press the remote control button to close the gate, but then they were already on us." The robbers took Fouché and JJ to the workshop at the back of the premises, where they repeatedly punched a worker, Jacob. The three men were forced to lie on the floor and their hands were tied behind their backs. They were stripped of their valuables. "Another two men came in with a bag containing an R5 rifle. I was warned not to take any chances while the one robber waved the R5 in front of me. Then they took me alone to the master bedroom in the house," Fouché said. The safe was already unlocked by then. The robbers wanted to know where Fouché was hiding his money and pistols. He was repeatedly hit over the head with the R5 while he was tied up and held on his bed. "Suddenly some of them came running in, screaming that they have to get out of there. I don't know what happened, but I suspect Jacob freed himself and jumped over the wall into the neighbours' property to get help. Then a security company was called." said Fouché. He freed himself and grabbed a shotgun. When he tried to shoot the gun misfired. He grabbed a second shotgun and left the house. Two of the robbers turned back and opened fire on him. "When I saw they were coming back, I had to run to the stoep and find shelter." Fouché shot at the armed suspects, who were near JJ's car, from the stoep. One of them shot back from inside the car. He was hit in the right foot while on his way to hide behind his bakkie. "I carried on shooting back and then I just sat behind the bakkie until the shots stopped." The two back windows of JJ's car were shattered by bullets. The body of one of the robbers lay outside the car on the road. Another suspect's body was in the driver's seat. Police captain Appel Ernst said Peet Venter, a policeman who lives in the area, reacted quickly when he heard the shots and called the police and also started chasing down the other two gunmen. "Another two robbers were found in the veld and in a nearby townhouse complex. We found two 9mm pistols in the vehicle. Another 9mm pistol was found in the veld and the R5 rifle was found in the townhouse complex. They are definitely among the most wanted criminals in the area," Ernst said. . No charges were laid against the taxidermist. http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article620582.ece/Two-robbers-shot-dead-by-taxidermisthttp://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Bende-se-moses-20100824

WARNING – GRUESOME CRIME PICTURES BELOW – NOT FOR CHILDREN

A shotgun in self-defence – so much better than a .22 peashooter…

Political commentator Patrick Laurence : ANC and the ‘Zulu factor”

17 September 2010 JOHANNESBURG – Patrick Laurence writes: “The recent manoeuvring by mutually hostile factions within the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies in the tripartite alliance raises questions about whether the alliance can survive in its present form and, if not, what its future might be.Such disputes generally provoke speculation as to whether one of (South Africa’s ruling) alliance's three members – the African National Congress, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) -- will walk out. The most frequently talked of scenario is one in which Cosatu withdraws from the alliance and serves as the “god-father of a worker's party” in opposition to the ANC.

Scenario leads either to revolution or a rival workers’ party:

This was a possibility articulated more than a decade ago in a report by Connie September, the then deputy president of Cosatu. The report anticipates three possible future scenarios for Cosatu, one of which, codenamed The Desert, anticipated the withdrawal of Cosatu from the tripartite alliance. Unlike the scenarios codenamed Skorokoro and Pap ‘n Vleis, The Desert does not have a happy ending.

It leads to either revolution or the rise of a rival workers' party to the ANC. The scenario needs to be seen as a prediction that might yet occur, but not a prediction of what will inevitably take place.

Cosatu is highly critical of the ANC today. It accuses the ANC leadership of not fulfilling its promises to the poor. Its strategy is to re-orient ANC policy in a pro-poor direction by a mixture of cajolery and coaxing. At the same time, however, Cosatu is seeking to increase its influence within the ANC by exhorting its rank-and-file members to become joint members of the ANC in the same way as many members of the SACP hold dual membership of the ANC.

Cosatu undoubtedly played a crucial role in ensuring the election of Jacob Zuma as president of the ANC in December 2007 and is unquestionably seeking to induce Zuma to abandon the pro-market and pro-investor macro-economic policy that he inherited from President Thabo Mbeki.

Nationalisation; new category of ‘super-rich’ taxpayers and a ‘solidarity tax’…

A discussion document that Cosatu submitted for consideration at the ANC's national general council -which starts on September 20 - is proof of Cosatu’s quest. It envisages the introduction of a new category of "super-rich" taxpayers and a "solidarity tax" on the top 10 percent of taxpayers, as well as a strategically targeted programme of nationalisation of important industries, including the mining of gold and coal and the refining of petroleum …

If it fails to persuade Zuma to change tack on economic policy, it may withdraw its support from him and seek to prevent his re-election as ANC president at the ANC's national conference in Bloemfontein in December of 2012.

If Cosatu succeeds in persuading Zuma to shift leftwards, the more conservative ANC members - or "nationalists," as they have been dubbed by the media - will certainly resist the "hijacking" of the ANC by communists and their auxiliaries and, if necessary, withdraw to establish an authentically nationalist ANC.

There is a precedent for that: the breakaway from the ANC by the Africanists and the establishment in 1959 of the Pan Africanist Congress (of Azania) under Robert Sobukwe.

Back then the Africanists saw the adoption by the ANC of the Freedom Charter as an invitation to communists to assume control of the ANC and they referred to the Freedom Charter scathingly as the Kliptown Charter and to its adherents as the Charterists.

In the past week there have been reports that might have a strong bearing on the future balance of power within the ANC-tripartite alliance. They relate to a call by Cosatu delegates at a bilateral meeting between Cosatu and the SACP, at which Cosatu representatives are reported to have pressed for Blade Nzimande, the general secretary of the SACP, to resign as the party leader, arguing that his role as the minister for higher education in the Zuma cabinet imposed too many demands on him to fulfil his duties as SACP general secretary.

Cosatu's pressure for Nzimande to resign as party general secretary - which he has predictably rejected - is linked to criticism voiced by Cosatu of SACP members serving in the Zuma cabinet. The nub of the complaint is that the SACP members have placed their ANC commitments above their loyalty to the working class. The allegation is made with specific reference to the reputed failure of the communist members of the cabinet to support the recent strike by public servants.

The charge brings to mind the rejoinder that Nelson Mandela made to those who charged that the African nationalists in the ANC were being manipulated and used by members of the SACP to advance communism rather than the liberation of the oppressed black majority. His riposte was to suggest it was more a case of African nationalists using their communist allies to advance a nationalist agenda than the other way round.

The justification of his counter-view is manifest in the end result of the settlement negotiations: the adoption of a liberal constitution as the foundation on which to build a non-racial democracy based on universal adult suffrage and free, open and regular elections.

Those who are wont to write Zuma off should take note of the Invuseleo campaign to raise the number of authenticated ANC members from the just over 620,000 at the time of the 2007 national conference to one-million by its scheduled national conference in 2012, the year that marks the centenary of its founding of the ANC.

It is likely that KwaZulu-Natal (*i.a. the Zulus) - and with it Zuma - will be the major beneficiary of the ANC's recruitment drive over the next 15 months. Indeed, it was reported at the recent Provincial General Council that there were now 192,618 ANC members in KZN.

It should remembered that Zuma is the first Zulu to serve as ANC president since the election of Albert Lutuli in the early 1950s and his tragic death in 1967.

The term "genocide" was coined by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1943, writing:

'Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actionsaiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and lives of the members of such groups... '